Stories for May 25th 2013

All is ready for the massive ‘decade won’ celebration that President Cristina Fernández plans to hold on Saturday May 25 to commemorate the ten years since her late husband Nestor Kirchner first took office, but which must also be interpreted as a rally in support of her administration battered by inflation, a slowing economy, political battles and growing claims of rampant corruption.

Falkland Islands elected lawmaker Mike Summers will attend next week the Caribbean Regional Seminar of the Special Committee on Decolonization which is to be held in Quito, Ecuador in anticipation of the main C24 annual meeting in New York.

Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face money laundering charges, the US embassy in Guatemala said. A US grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered 70 million dollars through US banks.

Brazil's jobless rate rose slightly in April for the fourth straight month but remained near record lows, suggesting that tight labour conditions bolstered a gradual recovery and fed into inflation, statistics agency IBGE said this week.

The Alliance of the Pacific announced this week that Paraguay had been accepted as an observer of the regional group. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos chair and host of the alliance summit in Cali made it official during the reading of the final declaration.

Gibraltar has been accepted as a full member of UEFA, European football's governing body. The application was approved on Friday on a majority vote at the organisation's congress in London, with no votes against and no abstentions.